Raiders stay hot

The Raiders continue to roll as they tamed the Mountain Lions on Thursday and followed up by dehorning the Mountain Goats on Saturday as the team’s winning streak reached nine straight.

Ty Egbert was the Raiders’ rock, and from his great performances both nights scoring a total of 52 points over both nights.

Thursday’s game against Liberty Bell did not start as many Raider fans thought it would. The Mountain Lions came out attacking Egbert and grabbed the early lead, hanging on to it for two minutes. Egbert and the Raiders found their groove and took the lead back and held onto it for the rest of the game.

Even so, Liberty Bell hung around in the first half because of mistakes made by the Raiders, whose lead at halftime was less than 20 points, 37-20.

“We rebounded extremely poorly and without enthusiasm in the first half Thursday,” Head Coach Brad Wilson said, “but came out with a 29-5 third quarter in which we showed much better effort and focus, rebounding and otherwise.”

The Raiders exploded in the third, with Egbert having full control of the key. At the end-of-quarter buzzer, Egbert threw up a shot from NBA three-point range and nailed it to practically seal the win, with the score 66-24.

During the fourth, LR set the cruise control, playing the second five and scoring only four points to Liberty Bell’s seven, for a final score of 70-31.

The game against the Mountain Lions was very similar to the Pateros game of the previous Friday, LR starts sluggish and the opponent tries to shut down Egbert or rattle the backcourt with a new defense or press scheme. The Raiders make mistakes and the other team uses them to stay in the game through the first half. Then in the third quarter the Raiders kick it up a notch and explode out of the locker room to put it out of reach by the fourth quarter.

The formula was repeated against Chelan on Saturday. The Goats played like offensive linemen on Ty Egbert in the first quarter to shut him down.

Keith Rosenbaum filled the void and scored eight points in quick succession in the first quarter, forcing Chelan to lighten up on Egbert.

With the score LR 20-Chelan 4 at the end of the first period, Egbert finally had some breathing space to perform.

Egbert regained control of the key in the second and began to take on his usual role as enforcer. Jesse Adkins’ and Kramer Carlson’s shooting from the outside prevented Chelan from collapsing quickly on Egbert. With multiple points of attack established, the Raiders went to the locker room up 37-20.

The Raiders, for the sixth game in a row, put on the cruise control in the fourth. Cody Laplante in his second varsity game scored his first two points of the season.

The final was LR 69 Chelan 29.

“We must continue to have a defensive mindset, with Brewster and Oroville both having many capable scorers,” Coach Brad Wilson said, when asked about keeping the boys focused down the stretch. “We must also compete well with one another in practice consistently and focus on getting better at skills like free-throw shooting.”

After three weeks of blowouts, the Raiders sat atop the Central Washington North going into last night’s scheduled game against the Brewster Bears at Brewster, for the last regular-season league matchup between the two squads for the near future. The Raiders also travel to Manson this week for a 7:30 p.m. showdown on Friday. The last time the Trojans and Raiders met, Manson left with a 90-40 blowout loss. Manson is 7-7 and 4-5 in Central Washington League play.